February 14, 1946prev home next
The doctor came, called to observe the continuous worsening of my condition, the spreading edemas, the basic pleural complications, and so many other aspects of my numerous illnesses. While he was examining and speaking - rather, while speaking after the examination - affable and desirous of providing some relief to a sick woman by interesting her in one thing or another, the spiritual voice of Azariah said to me:
“This is one of your witnesses. A doctor’s testimony is very valuable for future verification of a creature of God and especially for creatures who are ‘spokesmen,’ as you are. Only the doctor in charge of a case can say whether the individual is ill or has a pseudo-illness, is balanced or is suffering from simulative psychoses capable of explaining certain phenomena. Remember the value of medical testimony for God’s beloved creatures. Remember Fernanda Lorenzoni,163 whose physicians knew and respected God’s secrets in her. The man in front of you is, moreover, a good spirit. Do not neglect him, then. Speak, asking for the certificate, going so far as to touch upon your resignation and resistance, which are inexplicable in view of your sick body. Let Father then say the rest - clearly, so as to obtain a useful certificate. The doctor observes professional secrecy, just like the priest. Why so many scruples towards him, then, when the case is already public knowledge, and in versions which are not always honest and charitable? Human doubts? He himself will remove your doubt very soon. Speak, as I have told you to, for the glory of God.”
I then said, “Doctor, now that you have examined me on several occasions and seen me in the different stages and degrees of deterioration, provide the certificate which Father Migliorini wants.”
“Exactly! Explain to me a bit, in clear terms, what the purpose of it is and what I should say, in what sense. For I am an honest man, and if it’s a question of a clinical diagnosis, I want to make it very precise, and for all the organs, with radiological exams and so on. But if it’s a question of a judgment on the seriousness of the sufferings, I can do so in another way”
“It’s a matter of giving Father a certificate to be attached to the document which will be written concerning me, after my death, as priests are accustomed to do in regard to people afflicted by long infirmity who, in view of the way it evolves and is endured, leads one to consider the existence of spiritual forces willing the illness and its duration and of spiritual forces existing in a patient because of a spirit of deep religiosity. Father wants to know only if I, from a human standpoint, in the light of my age, could still be alive, if unequivocal suffering is observable in me, if the conditions should be regarded as real or in terms of suggestion, and so forth.”
“Why, in that case I’ll do so quite willingly. Right at the outset I’ll certainly say that anyone who looks at the case with faith cannot fail to discern supernatural events in it. There should have been no more mention of you for some time if everything had followed a human course. And by just observing the patience and resignation with which you have endured all of this - and for so long - one can grasp that there is a living heavenly fount in her. One either believes or does not. But if one believes - and I do - why deny the supernatural? Some days ago I also prepared two certificates attesting to a miracle worked through the Foundress of the sisters at the hospital. The nun in the ward asked me for them, and I very gladly prepared them. The healing, in all honesty, could not be said to have come through the agency of medicine; the sister said she had placed the image of the Foundress under the bed of the patient when he was already dying and the healing had taken place. Why refuse recognition of the merits of the sister who had died in the odor of sanctity? I would like to get matters straight, though, so as to orient myself properly.”
I did not specify “the matters” because doing so is irksome for me, and Azariah had not told me to. But I suppose that the doctor - with such good relations with the sisters at the hospital - is not entirely in the dark about the dictations and so on, even if he has only a vague impression. I thus feel it is useful for you to set forth the circumstances clearly for the doctor. Among other things, this was the second time he caught me by surprise as I wrote, and I appear to be rebelling against his advice that I not write. Nor can I say to him, “I disobey you because I obey God as a spokesman.” Don’t you agree?
There is nothing dishonorable to be said to the doctor on my case. And if the Bishop did not hesitate to send Dora164 to the doctors to discredit her, I think it is justifiable to be explicit with my personal physician to add a scientific note - by a believer, though - as support for the statements -all of them in spiritual and emotional terms - provided by my other witnesses on my case. Don’t wait for me to be dead to do so. Don’t always wait.165 Time and events are rapid and changeable. Afterwards it is useless to be sorry and bewail it....
163 A member of the Third Order of Our Lady of Sorrows (1906-1930), mentioned in The Notebooks. 1944, the entry for March 16.
164 See note 121.
165 As affirmed in regard to another doctor. See the entry for November 29 in The Notebooks. 1944.